Tinawi echoed the sentiment, saying she faced strong reservations from her family.

“My parents said: ‘You on a bike? You are a girl. It’s dangerous’,” she told AFP.

In Saudi Arabia, taking the wheel has long been a man’s prerogative.

For decades, hardliners cited austere interpretations of Islam as they sought to justify the ban, with many asserting that allowing them to drive would promote promiscuity.

Many women fear they are still easy prey for conservatives in a nation where male “guardians” — their fathers, husbands or other relatives — can exercise arbitrary authority to make decisions on their behalf.

“Expect more accidents” because of women is a common refrain in an avalanche of sexist comments on Twitter.

The government has preemptively addressed concerns of abuse by outlawing sexual harassment with a prison term of up to five years and a maximum penalty of 300,000 riyals.

– ‘Climate of fear’ –

The most immediate practical worry for female motorists is the dress code.

Inside the private institute, the bikers wear skinny jeans, with abrasion-proof knee pads wrapped outside — but that is still unthinkable in public.

Body-shrouding abaya robes — mandatory public wear for women — are impractical while riding as their flowing hems could get caught up in the wheels.

Many women also complain that female instructors are in short supply and that classes are expensive.

But topping all concerns is the crackdown on women activists — while the kingdom trumpets women’s rights.

Saudi Arabia this month said it detained 17 people for “undermining” the kingdom’s security.

State-backed media published pictures of veteran driving activists, the word “traitor” stamped across them in red.

“It’s a complete contradiction for the government to proclaim it is in favour of new freedoms for women and then target and detain women for demanding those freedoms,” Samah Hadid, Amnesty International’s Middle East director of campaigns, told AFP.

The arrests have unleashed a torrent of global criticism — including from vocal supporters of Prince Mohammed’s reform drive, such as Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University.

Calling the crackdown “a mistake”, he has urged the government to “apply due process and the rule of law” in handling jailed activists’ cases.

Observers say the arrests seem calculated by the crown prince to placate clerics incensed by the modernisation drive and to send a clear signal that the pace of reform will be driven by him alone, not the activists.

Back at the institute, as the floodlights dimmed and the women bikers donned their abayas to leave, the crackdown was not a topic of discussion.